The Bet (Lashton)

Chapter 4

Free period.

Luke didn't like that he had free period every day. It was the time he was the most unsafe. Anyone could be around and find him, so he often spent the time with his favorite teacher.

"Mr Peralta, do you have an extra red pen?" Luke asked, scribbling on a piece of scrap paper when the pen in his hand stopped working. He peered inside the clear pen, noticing the inkwell was empty.

    Without looking from his workwith, the teacher opened the drawer of his desk and set a cup filled with correction pens on the desk. "Here,"

    "Thanks," Luke leaned forward over the desk, getting up from the slightly smaller chair he'd been sitting in to take the pen. Luke was helping the teacher grade papers today during his free time. He tended to stick around teachers during these hours, because otherwise, Ashton and Crew would find him.

    Luke continued sifting through the tests. They'd taken them earlier in the week, and Luke knew his teacher was behind on work—like always—so he offered to help out.

    Jake appreciated it, but he was a little curious as to why Luke would rather hang out with him than his friends. It was a little worrying for the young boy, but he kind of figured that since Luke had such older siblings, he was more comfortable being around people older than him. It made sense, but it also made Jake sad. He knew how much fun he had with Luke's brothers and their friends, and he just wanted the same thing for Luke.

    Unaware of the thoughts brewing in the older man's head, Luke grabbed the answer key and the next test. Usually he didn't check the names on the top of the pages. It didn't really matter to him what everyone else's grades were and it wasn't going to make him think better or worse of another classmate based on their grade. But something caught his eye when he set the small packet in front of him and then all he could see was ASHTON IRWIN scrawled on the top of the page in messy, block letters.

    Luke started going through the true and false questions, already having memorized the order since he'd gone through so many tests by now.

    Ashton had gotten every single answer wrong, except for one which Luke couldn't tell if he put an 'F' or 'T' so he just gave him the credit for it.

    The next section was fill in the blank with no word bank, and Ashton's answers were crazy.

    Luke scrunched up his nose when he looked at the answer to "Who was the founding father who became Secretary of Treasury under George Washington?". Ashton had written in "Lin-Manuel Miranda".

    Luke shook his head as he finished the rest of the exam. Ashton had answered 3 questions correctly, and one of them was the credit Luke gave him because he felt bad.

    "Uh, Mr Peralta?" Luke looked up at him. Today, he was wearing a pink, blue, and green plaid button up which Luke thought looked nice on him. The young boy had an eye for fashion, and those colors made his teachers grey eyes look a pretty, pale blue.

    "Yeah, what is it?" Jake pushed his notebook aside, still not sure what he was going to do.

    "Well, I was just grading Ashton Irwin's test..."

    Jake sighed, shaking his head.

    "That kid frustrates the hell out of me." Luke eyes grew to the size of saucers. He didn't expect that to come from his teachers mouth. Teachers weren't supposed to say things like that about their students.

    "Wha-"

    Jake laughed.

    "No, not as a person. I'm impartial, don't have favorites, or least favorites," He rolled his eyes because the fact that Luke was there with him was clear evidence he was the favorite. "But I just mean that he's actually brilliant. I was the one who ran SAT prep last year, and he scored a 1580 on the practice exam." Luke almost choked when he found out that information. There's no way he was that smart. Luke had studied for weeks before the SAT and gone to every prep day and only scored a 1520. "I know, I was shocked to find that out as well. I didn't realize, but look," Jake held out his hand and gestured for Luke to put the test in his hand, which he did. "Come here." Luke walked around the desk and stood behind his teacher as he searched for something on the exam. "What happened with this?" He pointed to the only correct mark on the true or false questions.